However, I was impressed by the testimony of defendant No. 4 before me that he does not have a good grasp of the secrets of grammar and typing, and I cannot rule out the possibility that he made a typing mistake. Admittedly, the responsibility for the content of the response lies with its development even if it makes a mistake, and it is the responsibility that must bear its consequences, but this fact has significance in terms of compensation. To this, it should be added that at the end of the day, this is a rather negligible response, by a private person who does not have a public presence, which did not receive any resonance. Therefore, I accept the argument of counsel for defendant 4 that this is a case that borders on trivialities.
In view of the aforesaid, I order defendant 4 to pay the plaintiff compensation in the sum of ILS 1,000 only.
The Claim Against Defendant 5
- According to the plaintiff, defendant 5 published the following response:
There is no dispute between the parties that this is a publication that amounts to defamation. The dispute between the parties relates to the question of whether it has been proven that defendant 5 published the aforementioned response.
- Defendant 5's version is that he did not publish the response. Admittedly, defendant 5 does not dispute that its content is attached to his name and picture, in a way that creates the impression that he is the one who published it, but it does not bear a date at all, so it is impossible to know when it was published.
According to him, it is possible that his Facebook account was hacked or that a third party wrote it through a fictitious account bearing his name and photo. A third possibility is that a third party used his computer and published the response. Defendant 5 even filed a complaint with the police in this regard.
Defendant 5 further stated in his affidavit that in his estimation, the publication attributed to him was on June 17, 2020. He attached his activity page on June 16, 2020-June 18, 2020 on Facebook, and it shows that on the aforementioned dates he did not publish the alleged publication.
- There is no dispute that the burden of proving the publication, the identity of the advertiser, the place of publication, and the date of publication is on the plaintiff. A plaintiff must detail these details in his affidavit in full.
A perusal of the plaintiff's affidavit of the main witness shows that he did not meet this burden. The plaintiff's affidavit does not attribute any publication to defendant 5 at all, and suffices with a general reference to the doctoral investigator's report. The doctoral investigator's report includes only the aforementioned screenshot (p. 29 of the plaintiffs' main testimony affidavit). The evidence battery It is not possible to learn where the response was published as claimed, and when.